Reviews & Interviews
“How This Writer Learned to Cope with His Stepbrother's Schizophrenia,” by Krystie Lee Yandoli, Buzzfeed, December, 11, 2015
Krystie Lee Yandoli was an inspired interviewer, and I was happy to talk to her shortly after the paperback version of The Looking Glass Brother came out: “The most important thing I’ve learned about mental illness from dealing with my stepbrother is to try to accept him on his own terms rather than control or change him….” More…
“Schizophrenia Doesn't Care if You're Loaded,” by Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek Magazine, June 26, 2014
This article by Alexander Nazaryan is actually quite snarky (he uses the word “patrician” twice), but I was grateful that he attended the Hindu ceremony called Vasana Daha Tantra, officiated by my monk friend Dandapani, in which I burned part of the original manuscript of The Looking Glass Brother to free myself from clinging memories. More…
“The PEN Ten with Peter von Ziegesar,” PEN America, September 30, 2014
This interview with Lauren Cerand for PEN America’s website is one of my favorites. She asked great questions and gave me time to give good answers: “Frankly, I resisted calling myself a writer for a long time. The idea of identifying myself with a profession rather than as a person seemed dehumanizing in some way, like becoming a featureless cog in a much larger social machine.” More…
“Writer, with Kids: Peter von Ziegesar,” Cari Luna, September 8, 2014
Cari Luna’s interview gave me a chance to discuss the problems and delights of negotiating a literary career while raising children: “Evolutionarily speaking raising kids is the only important thing that we do. Of course it’s a holistic process, requiring many skills and tasks to be done even half correctly. But I think having much less time to work and more time to think about what was important really changed my writing. Plus, I’m not sure if this happens with other parents, but having children really stirred things up for me psychologically.” More…
“Stepbrothers with the same name follow vastly different paths in Peter von Ziegesar's new book,” by Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News, Jun 23, 2013
Sherryl Connelly was an especially savvy literary reporter for the Daily News. I’m sorry she is no longer with us: “It was weird knowing that a brother with the same name was somewhere outside my window sleeping in the streets,” says the writer, whose memoir hits stores on Tuesday. “It was like a part of me was out there, going through garbage cans. I couldn't shake it.” More…
“Prodigal Prodigy: PW Talks with Peter von Ziegesar,” by Liz Axelrod, Publishers Weekly, July 12, 2013
Liz Axelrod was the first to interview me after The Looking Glass Brother launched, and in some ways she got the best of my thoughts: “My father died just as I was starting to write this book, and I think the book reflects my going back over my long relationship with and recollections of him, and trying to somehow make sense of them. …Oddly enough, I am a third generation memoirist: both my father and his father wrote memoirs about their own unhappy and neglected childhoods. More…
“The Looking Glass Brother,” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review), July, 2013
“Brotherly love is evident here, while drugs, lavish estates, suicide, divorce, philandering, and the back drop of NYC round out a touching inside view of comfort and homelessness.” More…
“The Looking Glass Brother’ tells a tale of mental illness, family dysfunction, pain and love,” by Donna Seaman, Special to The Kansas City Star, July 6, 2013
“The Looking Glass Brother” is a portrait paired with a self-portrait, a tale of two brothers, each named Peter von Ziegesar. The book has the makings of an imaginative, cautionary fable about how easily a life can be forced off course, how fractured a family can become, how divided one’s self can be. But it is a true story told with candor and care. More…
The Looking Glass Brother, Kirkus, June 25, 2013
It’s as if characters wandered out of an Auchincloss novel to encounter Kerouac’s bunch. (A) vivid, frequently elegiac memory piece…” More…
The Looking Glass Brother, Booklist (Starred Review), June 1, 2013
“A piercing, thought-provoking portrait of a many-branched American family. Peter von Ziegesar’s cinematic eye and exceptional fluency in diverse perspectives make him an adventurously empathic biographer and audaciously candid memoirist.” -- Donna Seaman More…